


Like a Moth to the Flame

by CaptDonavin



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Body swap challenge, Eating Disorders, F/M, Growing, Other, but let me dream, diamondwinter's challenge, i know change doesn't happen this fast, learning, love is tough, loving people with disorders, wpnc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 15:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptDonavin/pseuds/CaptDonavin
Summary: Lilia and Isabella swap bodies.Ch1. Lilia wakes up in a body that is obviously not hers. The weight of it effects her brain and the disorders that live there. Little does she know that these afflictions could be fatal to her new body.





	Like a Moth to the Flame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DiamondWinters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiamondWinters/gifts).



> Diamond makes so many amazing challenges and I am sad that I am unable to participate in all of them. [ This one ](https://diamondwinters.tumblr.com/post/177595673944/the-body-swap-challenge), I could not resist though.
> 
> I know that I did not take this in any fashion that she intended, but maybe Isabella's chapter will go more smoothly.

Lilia woke up, and for the first time in years she didn’t feel sore. She stretched and pulled herself out of bed. It took her a few moments to notice that she wasn’t in her room. The walls were a bright pink and there were pictures of that boisterous Canadian skater and his fiancé everywhere. She turned to her reflection and allowed her eyes to pass over the reflection that wasn’t her own.

She could feel the muscles that held this girl’s body together. They were bulky and lose, obviously not a dancers body. Though the thing that struck Lilia most was that she had far too much weight. The girl’s cheekbones sat high on her face, but were hidden beneath a layer of fat that Lilia hadn’t seen in her own for an uncountable number of years.

Lilia had no idea what had happened to her, but never being one to panic – she started to go through her day as she would have had she woken up in her own body. She showered and stretched and made herself a cup of black tea. As she was sitting down with her tea, she realized that she didn’t have a studio to go to, or students to teach. She was on the other side of the world from all of her responsibilities. There was going to be a studio of children without guidance and she knew that they would all slack off without her. Besides that, she had the books to balance for the training facility that she and Yakov ran because god knew that the man was useless. The books were due at the end of the week and she was a million miles away.

Before Lilia could even start to formulate a plan there was a knock on the door. Her decision to not open the door was rendered moot as the door was pushed open and in walked the Canadian skater.

“Hey Bella,” the boy said as he presented her with a single rose.

_How cheap._ Lilia thought, though she tried to ignore the following thoughts about how Yakov used to do the same small gestures for her.

“Are you okay?” the boy asked as he looked down at Lilia, with the rose still outstretched towards her.

Lilia glowered at the boy. She wanted to tell him off for just walking into a girl’s house, and for only giving the girl a single rose – but Lilia also knew that these things were most likely normal for the girl. So she retrieved the rose from the outstretched hand.

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?” Lilia replied, staring right into the boys eyes, her expression never softening.

“You’re drinking black tea,” he explained. “You hate black tea because you find it bitter and too thin. I’ve never seen you drink tea without less than half of it being cream.”

“Cream is far too fattening,” Lilia stated as she deliberately took a sip of the tea.

“Fattening?” JJ asked as he looked down at the woman that he loved.

“Yes, how am I supposed to move if my body weighs me down?” Lilia demanded as she placed the cup back down, glaring at the boy. She could tell that the girl’s body weighed more than her own, and it couldn’t simply be explained away as muscle.

“Have you eaten anything today?” JJ asked, concern clear in his eyes.

“Of course not,” Lilia stated. “I have enough fat in this body to sustain me for quite a while.”

“I think you need to sleep,” JJ stated as he put down his things and placed his hand on Lilia’s head.

“I’m not sick,” Lilia stated as she stood up to confront him. Who was this boy to say what she should and should not do? “I think you need to leave.”

JJ stood and stared in shock. Lilia could clearly see that he wasn’t angry – but hurt. He didn’t say anything, he simply stood and stared at her. Lilia would have sworn that he was about to cry if he hadn’t looked so confused. She walked past him, leaving him there to think.

“We have that dinner for my little brother’s hockey team in a few hours, are you still coming with me?” JJ asked, though he seemed hesitant.

“In a few hours?” Lilia asked. She had just woken up, how could dinner be in only a few hours.

“Yeah, it starts at six and it’s already three,” he explained. “I had been hoping that I could spend time with you before the dinner, but if you would rather time alone I understand.”

She could hear his voice break. Of course he didn’t know that she wasn’t his girlfriend. He had no way of knowing why she was being so cold to him, but Lilia didn’t have time for trivial things like a little boys dinner. She had to figure out how to get back to her body.

“Just, before I leave, can you check your sugar levels for me?” He had moved to face her at this point. He was stern, not leaving room for argument, but his eyes were soft and scared. “I just, I just worry.”

“Check my sugar levels?” Lilia asked, genuinely confused.

“Yeah,” JJ replied. “I’ve seen you go into hypoglycemic shock before, and it was really scary, I just want to make sure that it doesn’t happen. You said you haven’t eaten yet today, and I have never seen you go more than a couple hours without something to eat, even just a snack, let alone the whole day.”

No more than a couple hours? Lilia could tell that the body was heavier than hers, but it wasn’t that much heavier than hers. There was no way that this girl eat constantly throughout the day.

“I’m fine,” Lilia replied.

“Bella,” JJ sighed. “Can you at least tell me what happened? Did some guy at the rink call you fat or something, because god knows that that’s a lie. I just don’t understand what happened. Did someone die? Because if you’re not sick then I don’t know why you would willingly put yourself at risk like this.”

“At risk?” Lilia asked.

“You know you can’t just not eat. You know your body can’t withstand it. I know you’ve been scared about your metabolism slowing down to a normal speed as we get older but that hasn’t happened yet. I can’t just leave you here to pass out and not have someone to take care of you. You know that that would kill me right? You know you can talk to me about anything right? We’re going to spend the rest of our lives together, I’m on your team.”

Lilia’s head started to spin. These words sounded so familiar. This boy sounded just like Yakov when they were younger. Yakov had always hated her fixation on her weight. He had always claimed that they were a team and that they would find healthy ways to stay in shape. She knew that not eating wasn’t the way to lose weight, but feeling how this body weighed her down bothered her. It made her want to throw up. Sure, it was more agile than her old one was, but she couldn’t get past how heavy it felt.

She felt a gentle hand grab her own. She looked down and noticed JJ staring worriedly at her hand.

“You’re cold and pale,” JJ stated.

“So?” She asked, still not willing to be convinced to eat. She didn’t feel well enough for that. The thought of this body made her stomach turn.

“I know what it looks like when you are about to go into shock,” JJ stated. “We have been together long enough for that and long enough for a lot of other things. You have no colour in your skin and you can’t even look straight. I don’t even know how you’re forcing yourself to stand right now.”

“I’m not weak,” Lilia growled. She tried to take a step away from the boy but her head started to spin and her vision went blurry. She had to catch herself on the table before she fell.

“Bella, I need you to sit down and let me get you something to eat,” the boy begged as he took a step closer to her. “If not for yourself then for me.”

She remembered when she was young and how worried she used to make Yakov. He knew that this was a part of her though. This kid didn’t know what it felt like to have your body feel like lead dragging your down. She remembered how Yakov struggled with it at first and forced her into compromises about weight goals and exercise plans. She remembered the look in his eyes when she would break these compromises – and she could see the expression mirrored in this boy.

Then everything went black.

Lilia woke up again in a stark white room, in an uncomfortable and small bed. And the noise in the room was driving her crazy. She looked around and wondered why everything was in English before she remembered that she wasn’t in her own body. After a few seconds she located the boy and she tapped him on the shoulder.

He raised his head and she could see the tear stains in his eyes.

“Oh thank god you’re awake,” he said as he reached to grab her hand. His hands were a stark contrast to the room. They were warm and soft. “I knew you needed to eat something. I’ll go get the doctor and tell them that you woke up.”

Lilia leaned back into her bed as the boy left. She felt bad for worrying the boy, but starvation wasn’t something that her body was new to. Though she hadn’t fainted in years. The sorrowful look on the boy’s face was going to break her though. The look that was so full of love and worry – one that reminded her so much of Yakov before their lives got frustrating.

Her thoughts were cut short by a tall man in a lab coat walking into the room.

“Isabella Yang,” the doctor read off of his clip board. “Your records show that you have been here twice in the last month for hypoglycemic shock, can you tell me why that is?”

“No,” Lilia answered honestly. It wasn’t her body, how was she to know why it did the things it did.

“The last time we were here we were told that the stress from planning the wedding could have heightened her metabolism even more, causing her normal precautions to not be enough,” JJ explained.

“So you upped your caloric intake and started testing your sugar levels three times a day, right?” the doctor asked.

Lilia shrugged her shoulders, a gesture that would have landed any of her students an extra hour of practice – but what was she supposed to say?

“She had been very diligent about it up until today,” JJ answered for her.

“Was there anything that could have triggered the forgetfulness today?” The doctor asked.

“I just forgot,” Lilia said. “Like he had said before I have been under a lot of stress with wedding preparations and I just forgot.”

“He also told me that you had been refusing to eat when he showed up at your house, you realize that things could have been a hell of a lot worse had he not been there?”

She did now. She didn’t understand how she could feel the power of the muscles in this girl, feel the weight of the fat on the body, but how it could all be so frail at the same time.

They released her soon, even though they worried about her supposed memory gap, they didn’t have room to keep her if she had people around to worry about her. JJ had offered to stay with her that night but Lilia had refused. He seemed to deflate even more at her rejection, but he accepted it nonetheless.

She went “home” and did her research. She found a computer and she typed in a few of the things that the doctor had brought up.

Hypoglycemia.

Over active metabolism.

Hypothyroid.

Hypermetabolic.

Graves’ disease.

After hours of research and being lead down a rabbit hole of dietary advice Lilia heaved a sigh. It wasn’t anything that Yakov hadn’t told her before. It wasn’t anything that he had argued with her about before the divorce.

She was torturing her students.

She hadn’t taken into account that they were not her. She hadn’t even thought that maybe some of them needed to eat more than others. Her girls were strong, and those who couldn’t handle it had gone off to seek other coaches – though in her experience there weren’t many who were lax on their dietary rules.

Her frustration grew. She argued with herself over every little detail that she had read over that night. Her whole life she had been taught that beauty was found in pain – in suffering. Her entire life she had been told what she could and could not eat, and what little she was allowed to eat her portions were small. This had been instilled in her by her instructors and she had instilled it into her girls. She knew that she needed to change things. She knew that Yakov had been right all those years ago.

She went to bed with her mind spinning and her head pounding. How she had managed to fall asleep she didn’t know, but she woke up in her own room.

She didn’t go into the studio. She didn’t work on the books. She set to work on new dietary plans for each of her students. The parents had been angry to hear from her – of course they were, she had been running their children to the bone. They softened up when she told them her goal – but more than a few of them had their share to say in her pervious methods.

What shocked her and angered her the most though were the parents who were angry at her decision to change. They claimed that they didn’t want their children getting fat. They didn’t want their girls to get too muscular because then they wouldn’t be attractive. Lilia took note of how many rooms were left in the dorms for her and Yakov’s training facility – enough.

She taught her students to be strong. She taught her girls to never listen to what the boys had to say and to stay as cold as ice. She had taught her boys, the few that stayed, that they had the strength to carry two girls across a room, they had the strength to throw anyone who made fun of them across the room.

Now she knew that she needed to teach her students how to be soft, even if only towards themselves. They had to learn to listen to their bodies. They had to know when it needed a break or if it needed more fuel. She thought about how strong her students would get – they were already champions, but how much further they could go.

Yakov had walked into her office to ask her how the books were going, but when he saw what she was up to, he let her be. He didn’t know what had happened, but he wasn’t going to question it. Not only could questioning it put it to an end – but it would get him smacked across the room. He walked away from the woman he loved and hoped that beyond anything that she had learned to love herself – even just a little.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I feel like I have to explain why I did this. So many people in my work place are going on diets. Now I don't believe in diets, but I am also hypoglycemic. If I don't eat a certain amount I pass out. I can't exert myself too much. And I suck at general physical things. So I don't understand people who willingly deprive themselves of food.  
> In this story Lilia is the opposite. She lives in a world where eating is frowned upon. She only knows that ballerina's are meant to be skinny and that food makes you fat. I could never understand Lilia's side of things, but here she is forced to understand mine.  
> I know that change doesn't happen this fast, and I know that it would never be this drastic. I am going off the hopes that the event would be dramatic enough that she would at least see that some of her girls couldn't live the way that she does. Here is me admitting that I don't understand eating disorders and I never will. One of my kids has one, and I fight every day not to see her skinny frail body and force her to sit down and eat until I can't see her ribs - but that's not how things work either.  
> Here is to everyone learning and trying to understand the other side of everything.  
> I tried.  
> Love Donny


End file.
